In general, a carbonaceous molded body is prepared by adding a binder to a powder of a carbonaceous material such as graphite or coke, kneading the mixture, molding and curing the mixture, and if necessary, firing and graphitizing the molded and cured body. Since the properties required for the prepared carbonaceous molded body differ according to the intended purpose and use of the molded body, various preparation processes have been adopted, and various proposals have been made on the molding method and the kind of the binder (see, for example, "Guide to Carbon Materials", revised edition, page 135, compiled by the Association of Carbon Materials; Mizushima and Okada, "Carbon Materials", page 55, published by Kyoritsu Shuppan; and Ishikawa and Nagaoki, "New Carbon Technology", page 173, published by Kindai Henshusha).
These conventional carbonaceous molded bodies retain characteristic properties of carbon, such as light weight, high strength, high Young's modulus, electroconductivity, corrosion resistance, heat resistance and slidability. High Young's modulus of the conventional materials is relatively advantageous when a high rigidity is required. However, the conventional materials are defective in that the pliability is poor, and from the viewpoint of safety, a material having a higher strength is now required.
We previously proposed an elastic graphite body having excellent elasticity characteristics as the carbonaceous material (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 1-9808). This elastic graphite body has a light weight and a good elasticity, and has excellent characteristics not possessed by the conventional carbonaceous materials.
However, although this carbonaceous material per se has good characteristics, since the material is in the form of a powder or granule, the material cannot be used singly, but the material should be mixed with other material or be used in the state of being packed in a vessel. Furthermore, even if the material is placed in such a restricted state, it is not easy to mold the material while sufficiently utilizing excellent properties possessed inherently by the material.